Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Jeffrey C. Hammes has been re-elected
as chairman of Kirkland & Ellis LLP’s global management
executive committee. Hammes became chairman in 2010, and his
second three-year term will start in February 2013.

During Hammes’s first term, the firm opened a new office in
Shanghai in 2010 and expanded through the addition of lateral
partners.

Last August, the firm hired eight new partners from U.S.
and U.K. rivals in Hong Kong as part of a plan to more than
double its lawyers in Asia. The new hires included Nick Norris,
Dominic Tsun and Li-Chien Wong, who joined from Skadden, Arps,
Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; David Zhang, Benjamin Su and John
Otoshi from Latham & Watkins LLP; and Ashley Young and Douglas
Murning from Allen & Overy LLP. The firm now has 55 lawyers in
Asia.

Kirkland also went on a real estate lawyer hiring spree
last year, adding more than seven high profile real estate
lateral partners from May to July. The firm hired three other
partners with real estate-related experience around the same
time as well.

Last July, Daniel Perlman and Jeffrey Rheeling joined from
Paul Hastings LLP in Chicago, where Perlman was the vice
chairman of the global real estate practice. The same month, the
firm hired Andrew D. Small and Rachel S. Brown in Chicago,
previously partners of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. Small was the
co-chairman of Katten’s Chicago real estate practice.

In May, Scott Berger, Jonathan Schechter and Andrew Shiner
joined the New York office from White & Case LLP, where Berger
was the head of the global real estate practice.

Kirkland also hired corporate and securities lawyer Edward
Schneidman and tax attorney William Levy from Mayer Brown LLP’s
as well as private-funds lawyer Kelly Ryan. All three have real-estate related practices and joined the Chicago office.

Prior to his tenure as chairman of the global management
executive committee, Hammes led the opening of the Hong Kong
office in 2006. He also was a founding partner of the San
Francisco office, which opened in 2003, and the Palo Alto
office, which opened in 2008.

Hammes has concentrated his practice on structuring and
negotiating complex business transactions including mergers,
acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, private transactions and
private-equity compensation and governance matters. Clients
include Bain Capital Partners LLC and Golden Gate Capital,
according to his web biography.

Kirkland & Ellis is a 1,500-attorney law firm with 10
offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Deals

Best Buy Founder Offers to Buy Chain for Up to $26 a Share

Best Buy Co. founder Richard Schulze, who stepped down as
chairman in June, offered to take the electronics retailer
private at $24 to $26 a share. The stock had the biggest gain in
almost a decade.

Shearman & Sterling LLP is representing Schulze while is
advising Best Buy.

The Shearman & Sterling team includes New York partners
Creighton Condon, Christa D’Alimonte, and Eliza Swann on mergers
and acquisitions. Stuart Baskin and Jaculin Aaron assisted on
litigation and Joshua Thompson on finance.

Credit Suisse Group AG, Schulze’s financial adviser, is
confident it can obtain financing for an offer, according to a
letter sent to the board yesterday. The offer is at least 36
percent more than Best Buy’s closing price Aug. 3, and the
midpoint of the range gives the company an equity value of $8.5
billion.

Schulze, who held more than 20 percent of Best Buy as of
June, plans to contribute $1 billion in equity from that stake,
the letter shows. The rest of the money will come from what the
letter calls “premier private-equity firms with deep experience
in retail who are interested in a possible acquisition of Best
Buy” and debt financing. The Richfield, Minnesota-based
electronics chain had about $1.7 billion in long-term debt as of
May 5, according to regulatory filings.

Best Buy confirmed in an e-mailed statement that it had
received the letter from Schulze and said its board would
consider it “in due course.”

Through a spokesman, Schulze declined to comment on the
letter.

For more, click here.

Haslam Agrees to Buy Browns for More Than $1 Billion

Proskauer Rose LLP is advising James Haslam III, a minority
owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who has agreed to buy the
Cleveland Browns for more than $1 billion, from Randy Lerner,
who is advised by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

The Proskauer team is being led by firm chairman Joseph M.
Leccese and partner Wayne D. Katz, who both specialize in sports
law. They were joined by partners Amanda H. Nussbaum on tax and
Steven D. Weinstein on employee benefits, executive compensation
and ERISA litigation.

Wachtell Lipton’s team is led by corporate partners Edward
D. Herlihy and Lawrence S. Makow.

The transaction, which requires Haslam to sell his minority
stake in the Pittsburgh Steelers, is subject to approval by 24
of the NFL’s 32 team owners. The deal should close shortly after
owners vote on it, Lerner said. Until then, all senior
executives will remain in place.

Haslam, 58, is president of Pilot Travel Centers LLC, the
nation’s largest operator of travel centers and truck stops. He
is also the brother of Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam.

Lerner, 50, who also owns English Premier League soccer
team Aston Villa, took control of the Browns in October 2002
after his father’s death.

The Browns had revenue of $247 million and an operating
loss of $2.9 million after the 2010 season, according to Forbes.

For more, click here.

Moves

Corporate Lawyer Joins DLA Piper in Northern Virginia

DLA Piper LLP said Eric Grossman joined the corporate and
finance practice as a partner in the Northern Virginia office.
He was previously a partner in the business department of Cooley
LLP, the firm said.

Grossman focuses his practice on representing technology
companies and private equity investors and their portfolio
companies in connection with acquisitions, private equity and
growth equity and general corporate and securities matters. He
works closely with technology companies in cybersecurity, cloud
computing, wireless communications and health care information
technology.

“Eric has broad experience that will enhance our strong
private equity, venture capital and mergers and acquisition
capabilities in a key region for technology companies and
private equity investors,” Jay Smith, global co-chairman of DLA
Piper’s corporate practice, said in a statement.

DLA Piper has 4,200 lawyers in 31 countries and 77 offices
in the Americas, the U.K., Continental Europe, Middle East, Asia
and Australia.

Barz Joins SNR Denton’s Corporate Practice in New York

SNR Denton LLP announced that Michael R. Barz has joined
the firm’s New York office as a partner in its corporate and
business transactions practice. Barz joined from DLA Piper LLP,
the firm said.

Barz concentrates his practice on domestic and
international infrastructure financings utilizing public,
project, leveraged lease and other structured finance techniques
as well as Islamic finance. During his years in private
practice, Barz has represented governments, financial
institutions, developers, owners and insurers in the development
and financing of a wide variety of assets including sports
stadiums and arenas, power plants, petrochemical facilities,
toll roads and other infrastructure improvements. Barz has
worked on financings for teams such as the New England Patriots,
Philadelphia Eagles, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, Dallas
Cowboys and the University of Louisville Cardinals.

“Mike Barz is a tremendous complement to the growing
global project finance practice we offer clients,’’” Margaret
Kavalaris, head of SNR Denton’s corporate and business
transactions practice, said in a statement. “His particular
strengths in energy and infrastructure in Central Europe, the
Middle East and Asia Pacific is ideally suited to the type of
cross-border work that has become the norm in those regions.”

SNR Denton has more than 60 locations worldwide, through
offices, associate firms and special alliances across the U.S.,
the U.K., Europe, the Middle East, Russia and the CIS, Asia
Pacific and Africa.

Bankruptcy and Restructuring Shareholder Joins Butzel Long

Andrew D. Shaffer, an attorney who concentrates his
practice on bankruptcy and restructuring, has joined the law
firm Butzel Long as a shareholder in its New York office.
Shaffer was previously a partner at Mayer Brown LLP, the firm
said.

He has represented creditors in U.S. bankruptcy proceedings
as well as liquidations and rehabilitations of banks, brokers,
future commission merchants and insurance companies.

Shaffer has also represented clients on transactional
matters including mergers, acquisitions, entity creation and the
structure of debt instruments. He counsels clients on the choice
of transactional structures that maximize their legal rights and
remedies when an obligor becomes subject to bankruptcy or
similar proceedings, the firm said.

Butzel Long has 140 attorneys and offices in Michigan, New
York City, Washington, Mexico and China.

News

Dewey ‘Wind Down’ Consultants to Complete Their Work by Aug. 31

Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP’s consultants advising the law firm on
its liquidation will finish their work on Aug. 31, they said in
a federal court filing in Manhattan. Dewey asked them to stay on
beyond Aug. 3, when they were due to complete the job, they
said.

Dewey failed on May 28 owing more than $225 million to
secured lenders, after piling on debt to expand and pay
partners.

The team winding down the firm’s bankruptcy has extended
the deadline for former partners to sign on to an agreement that
would avoid clawback litigation, Reuters said yesterday. The new
deadline for the agreement, which asks for 672 former partners
to give back $90.4 million, is Aug. 13, according to the wire
service.

The case is In re Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, 12-12321, U.S.
Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

N.J. Towns Blame State for Letting Part-Timers Accrue Pensions

Part-time work for the New Jersey towns of Leonia, Saddle
Brook and Elmwood Park helped attorney Brian Giblin rack up
pension credits worth $33,143 a year, even after a 2007 state
law made contractors like him ineligible.

Giblin was among five attorneys singled out in a July 17
audit by Comptroller Matthew Boxer that found 202 people
improperly enrolled in the state pension system. The potential
cost of retirement payments to those attorneys, engineers and
other professionals is at least $1.9 million annually, Boxer
said, and probably much more because his office surveyed only
159 of New Jersey’s more than 1,000 towns and school districts.

The audit suggests that New Jersey has more work to do to
end pension-system abuses that have contributed to it having $42
billion less in assets than needed to cover promised benefits.
Lawmakers banned professionals from the system five years ago
after a task force declared the rolls rife with “non-deserving” and “politically well-connected” people. The state
has done little to enforce the law.

“Every quarter we’re required to send reports to the
pension system,” Karen Chamberlain, Saddle Brook’s mayor, said
in a July 27 telephone interview. “They should have been able
to pick it up and say, ‘OK, Saddle Brook, here’s a person who’s
not supposed to be in, and what are you going to do about it?”

New Jersey’s pension deficit reached $53.9 billion in 2010
after the state expanded benefits and skipped payments over a
decade. The gap fell to $36.3 billion after Governor Chris
Christie signed bills in 2011 that boosted employee pension and
health-care contributions, raised the minimum retirement age for
new workers and froze cost-of-living adjustments.

The unfunded liability swelled to $41.8 billion by June
2011 after Christie, a Republican, skipped a $3 billion pension
payment. The deficit would have been more than $61 billion
without his benefits overhaul, the state treasury estimated.
Christie’s budget for this fiscal year included a $1.03 billion
payment under a 2010 law that requires the state to phase in
full contributions over seven years.

Saddle Brook, 8 miles (13 kilometers) west of New York City
with a median household income of about $83,000, pays Giblin
$6,516 a year to be its municipal prosecutor. He also is borough
attorney in Elmwood Park and Leonia, with annual compensation
from those towns of $128,840. All three towns were giving him
credits toward a pension, Boxer’s audit found.

Giblin, 56, who lives in Paramus, declined to comment when
reached by telephone the day Boxer’s audit was released, saying
he hadn’t seen it. He didn’t respond to subsequent messages left
at his Oradell private law firm. A reporter who visited the
office yesterday seeking comment was told he wasn’t there.

For more, click here.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Elizabeth Amon in Brooklyn, New York,
at eamon2@bloomberg.net.